Barclays poaches CommBank tech chief Harte to replace Kheradpir

01 May 2014 | 5266 views | 0

CommBank CIO Michael Harte has quit the Australian bank to take up the role of chief operations and technology officer of Barclays Bank in London.

Harte joined the Commonwealth Bank as a group executive of enterprise IT in April 2006. For the past eight years, he has led the group's technology teams. And for the past five years, since the expansion of the enterprise IT function into enterprise services, he has also led most of the group's operations teams.

CommBank CEO Ian Narev says that under Harte's leadership, the application of technology to financial services became a core strategic priority, pointing to the mammoth $1.5 billion six-year programme to replace the bank's legacy technology with a new real-time core banking system.

Says Narev: "We greatly appreciate Michael's contribution to our IT strategy which has built a strong team and a pipeline of value-creating technology solutions which will benefit our customers and businesses for years to come."

Barclays has been hunting for a new operations and technology chief since last November, when the previous incumbent Shaygan Kheradpir unexpectedly quit to join US-based technology company Juniper Networks.

CommBank's Narev indicates that an announcement regarding a replacement for Harte would likely be made in June, with a focus on internal talent.

"Technology is a core strategic priority of the group, and I am very pleased that we have a strong pool of internal candidates who will provide strategic continuity, and also lead us through the next phase of our technology and operations innovation, while maintaining on-going focus on security and resilience," he says.